“Words, after all, are symbols, and while it is the symbols that are used to describe what the people do, somehow in this process the symbols and the story they tell take on a life of their own.” (p 83)

“All societies depend for their stability on feedback from the people. Depersonalization reduces feedback to a minimum, contributing to instability and lowering the overall level of congruence in the society.” (p 67)

“I soon learned that I was dealing with at least four different time systems: Hopi time, Navajo time, government bureaucratic time, and the time used by the other white men (mostly Indian traders) who lived on the reservation. There was also Eastern tourist time, banker’s time (when notes were due), and many other variations of the white man’s time system.” (p 29)

“In my approach, behavior comes first and words follow. Looking at what people actually do (in contrast to what they write and say when theorizing) one quickly discovers a wide discrepancy between time as it is lived and time as it is considered.” (p 13)

“In the Middle Ages, the Church was mistress of social time. … The population was informed of the passage of time by the church bells summoning them to matins, mass, vespers and so on. … The total control exercised over social time led to the subjugation of man to the ruling social and ideological system. Time for the individual was not his own individual time, it belonged not to him, but to a higher, dominating force.” (p 239)

“… colonized peoples share a language of colonization, share knowledge about their colonizers, and, in terms of a political project, share the same struggle for decolonization. It also means that colonizers, too, share a language and knowledge of colonization.” (p 62)